Someone at work did heaps of baking over the weekend and brought in surplus. I did cut back on the number of coffees I made myself though which is a start I guess.

Half hour walk each way to work yesterday.Half hour hill walk this morning before breakfast.

Slowly slowy catchey monkey...

Edited to add starting waist measurement = 83cmGoal at this stage is to get to 77cm which is what it was when my daughter was 1yo and I'd regained my 65kg pre-baby weight.

Racing weight was under 63kg and waist around 70-72cm. Not sure if I can reclaim my pre-35 and pre-baby body. I would love to fit into the lovely button-fly Atelier jeans I cannot bring myself to put in the Salvos bag but...

My waist is currently 81cm and I need to lose 12kg. My sister weighs 5kg less than me and her waist is 11cm more. We are the same height. I have thunder thighs and she totters on sticks.

Isn't it strange how two people from the same family can be so differently shaped?

I'm just saying all this to avoid admitting that the wagon I fell off yesterday has a broken axle so the roast pork (no fat or crackling!!) was followed by a Muffin Break VANILLA SLICE!! I had already had my chocolate treat earlier today, but I couldn't refuse a gift I ate my entire day's worth of calories at dinner!! I don't think it makes a scrap of difference that I burned off 700 calories whilst riding.

Last night I got fatter. Like a whole kilo. Every month, I have a day where I gain a stupid amount of weight (most probably fluid retention), it hangs around for a few days, then just disappears. Why can't I have weigh in day just after it has disappeared?! Not fair. I had lost this week too, but unless something dramatic happens - like me not eating all day which is never going to happen - then I'm going to be fatter I maybe deserved a little bit after the "pig fest" of yesterday, but that was ridiculous!!

I'm strong Apple. Not much I can do about stupid monthly random weight gain unless I wait for menopause and I have a few too many years to make that practical!!

I'll catch you up next week when you're not looking!!

Calories today were back to normal anyway. Yoghurt and fruit for breaky, chai latte (I only ever have one per day if any as I don't like coffee), ngiri sushi for lunch, then just had a pork and apple sauce roll for dinner with apple crumble. It sounds worse than it is!! The roll was the quickest to make after getting home from shopping just before 9. The crumble was ramekin sized and all home made - more apple than crumble.

With my run tonight that almost killed me - who am I kidding every run almost kills me - I have consumed the correct number of calories for the day Still need to walk a few kms with the dogs so that will be another 150 calories I can claim.

I weighed in again this morning and, despite doing no exercise yesterday, sitting in my office all day, and eating 1500 calories instead of my 1100 target, I managed to lose 600g wince yesterday morning.

The reason was that I had a migraine in the evening. For some reason, these often accompany my massive weight gain/loss times. I do take a daily medication to control them, but sometimes one slips through. So anyway, after putting on that kilo the other day, I've lost 1.3 in 2 days!!

Note: Migraines are not an approved form of weight loss. Do not try these at home.

Eased up on the coffees and bikkies and portion sizes at meals. As I said, I don't count kilojoules, but out of interest I used mapmyride to estimate kJ burned - on Saturday over 4000, plus another 2000 on Sunday. Yay!

Just noticed that some people are talking about eat 900 or 1100 calories a day. The minimum you should consume is 1200... When you are talking about how much you are eating are you taking off how much you have exercised?

I've been losing weight relatively consistently by eating a net result of 1200 calories per day - so to get that figure I subtract calories I burnt through exercise from calories I ate. That results in me eating ~1600 calories per day. If I can lose weight doing that then you girls should be able to eat more, as I'm a bit on the short side and not too far from my goal so my body doesn't need much to operate (unfortunately!).

orphic wrote:Just noticed that some people are talking about eat 900 or 1100 calories a day. The minimum you should consume is 1200... When you are talking about how much you are eating are you taking off how much you have exercised?

I've been losing weight relatively consistently by eating a net result of 1200 calories per day - so to get that figure I subtract calories I burnt through exercise from calories I ate. That results in me eating ~1600 calories per day. If I can lose weight doing that then you girls should be able to eat more, as I'm a bit on the short side and not too far from my goal so my body doesn't need much to operate (unfortunately!).

I diet obsessively for 4 weeks at a time and then I take a two week break and allow more calories in, this works for me, I'm about to go back to obsessive, if you balance it properly and eat the right food you can sustain a healthy diet and exercise program on 1100-1200 Claories a day, its hard, don't get me wrong and you probably shouldn't do it for to long and you need to schedule cheat days once a week.

In my two weeks off, I've never put the weight back on, I've sustained the same weight, not all people are the same, to loose weight some people are better off being hungry (like me), I work on that principle, but don't think I'm starving myself cause I'm eating the right foods.

If I consume 1100 calories I want to burn as much as that as possible if not more... tomorrow I go back to being obsessive!

Really? My Mum was once put on a calorie controlled diet by her GP at 900/day. But she wasn't doing anything more strenuous than walking and general household/parenting duties.

If I consume 1100 calories I want to burn as much as that as possible if not more

That is just crazy! (IMO) Oh boy now I know why I don't count calories obsessively!

I have checked my diet from time to time, and provided I keep the between meal snacks to a minimum, I am eating about 8000 KJ a day. If I then do a ride like today and burn about 2500 KJ and I do it on just water and don't change my diet, then that drops my effective intake to 5500... BUT if I was doing a ride that burned more than about 6000 KJ then I would be upping my KJ intake at least during the ride and just afterwards.

I'm also going to argue against this. I really think it depends on what your activity levels are and also what you read. I have found lots of sources that say 1000 calories is the minimum.

that drops my effective intake to 5500

So thats approximately 1300calories which sounds like a pretty good target to me.

Anyway, what works for some people won't work for others.

I entirely agree and if you find something that works for you stick with it while it continues to do so!

I have never counted calories until a few weeks ago when this thread got me thinking. I have nutrition training, I think I know enough to not need to obsess about calories. What I have found in the past few weeks is that if I eat everything I know is good for me, and nothing I know isn't I average about 1000calories. This is the sum of the food I eat, not food minus exercise, therefore if I throw in some exercise my total daily intake is really low.

I have however been slack with my exercise the last few weeks and i'm sure once it is more frequent I will need to increase my calories. I'm mending my broken wagon as of tomorrow and am going to continue my counting just out of interest.

Bugger - didn't weight today as I was running late (possibly because it was bin day and I went back to bed and then the truck came and the bin wasn't out and I had to run and then I was late getting in the shower and I just didn't, ok?! ).

I do know I've probably nt lost much since last week but I have lost 1cm from my waist in the last 2 weeks. I must be building some other muscles!!

Bugger to be up 0.5kg on last week Steph. Think of it as a glitch in the scales - they'll come good next week

I did weigh myself last Saturday - a day late but I was down 0.2kg and back to my start weight!! I was up and down so much last week - I had daily fluctuations of about a kilo. Gotta love "that time of the month"!!